Concordia’s football team lost to their crosstown rivals on Saturday
During a cold rainy day at Concordia Stadium on Oct. 22, the Concordia Stingers football team came out flat and lost to their crosstown rivals, the McGill Redmen, by a score of 21-8.
“I’m not going to single anyone out, but overall the performance was not good,” Stingers head coach Mickey Donovan said. “I’m not going to take anything away from McGill, they played hard and won the game but at the end of the day, we didn’t execute.”
The game started off in McGill’s favour, as they managed to get a field goal just three and a half minutes in, on their first possession.
Down 3-0 from the Redmen’s field goal, Stingers quarterback Trenton Miller led his team down the field on their ensuing drive. Miller looked calm and was able to complete passes to receivers Derek Trinh and Justin Julien. The offence made it to McGill’s one-yard line, but weren’t able to run the ball in for a touchdown.
“You know we were down on the one-yard line and we need to be able to push our way into the endzone. There’s no excuses for that,” Donovan said. “It’s been a problem all year. The reason why we pass so much is because we’re not running the ball well at all.”
With the Stingers turning the ball over after the failed scoring attempt, the Redmen picked it up at their own one-yard line and marched all the way down the field for a touchdown. The touchdown was scored by Redmen quarterback Frédéric Paquette-Perrault at the beginning of the second quarter, making the score 10-0.
The rest of the half was dominated by the Redmen. They added two field goals and a safety to take an 18-0 lead at halftime.
In the third quarter, both teams struggled offensively and were unable to get any sustained pressure going, leaving each team trading possessions until the end of the game.
With under four minutes to play, the Redmen added a field goal to make the score 21-3. The Stingers, however, responded with their first touchdown of the game. The score was a 34-yard touchdown pass from Miller to Julien with just 34 seconds left in the match.
After the game, Donovan commented on his team’s inconsistent performance on defence throughout the match.
“The defence has been playing solid all year,” Donovan said. “If you saw the first half, there were a couple of mistakes and that hurts us. But in the second half, they came out and started playing.”
With the loss, the Stingers now have a record of 3-4 in the season, with one game left. The Stingers travel to Bishop’s University next week for a game on Oct. 29 against the Gaiters. If the Stingers win, they earn themselves a spot in the playoffs.
“It’s a must win game. It’s playoffs,” said Donovan.